The northwest region of China is located in the hinterland of Eurasia, in which the source of water vapor is scarce, and drought is its main climatic feature. In recent years, with the continuous increase of regional precipitation, the warming and wetting in Northwest China has attracted great attention from all walks of life. In order to scientifically respond to social concerns, the team used multi-source data to conduct in-depth research on the phenomenon of warming and wetting in Northwest China from multi-scale and multi-dimensional perspectives, and found that the trend of wetting in Northwest China had significant and nonlinear enhancement characteristics. It is recognized that the wetting in Northwest China is expanding eastward, and the land surface evapotranspiration there has a special negative feedback mechanism on climate warming. It is estimated that the warming and wetting trend will still maintain in Northwest China in this century, and the wetting trend is driven by multi-factor comprehensive driving mechanism. The multi-aspect impacts of the warming and wetting in Northwest China are evaluated, and the technical countermeasures to deal with the warming and wetting there are put forward, and the research results of “the enhancement and eastward expansion of climate warming and humidification, formation mechanism and important environmental impacts in Northwest China” are formed. The major consultation report based on the research results has played an important decision-making support for the national strategies such as the development of the western region in the new era and the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. The research results were selected as “China's Top Ten Scientific and Technological Progress in Ecological Environment” in 2022, and have also received extensive attention from the international academic communities.

In the summer of 2022, there was a climate anomaly with the highest average temperature and less precipitation since 1961 in China, accompanied by the strongest nationwide high temperature processes (except northeastern China) and a wide range and strong summer drought in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and Sichuan and Chongqing. For the persistence and extremity of the high temperature and drought event in this summer in China, this paper analyzes the temporal and spatial distribution characteristics and cirulation situation based on the daily maximum temperature and precipitation of 2162 meteorological stations in China from June to August 2022 and the daily reanalysis data of NCEP (National Centers for Environmental Prediction) /NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research), which will be of some references for the forecast of summer high temperature and drought with different time scales in southern China. The results show that in the summer of 2022, a total of 48 198 high temperature events occurred in 76.0% of the stations in China, among which 36.6% of the stations experienced 3001 extreme high temperature events. The stations with more than 20 extreme high temperature events all distributed in the Sichuan Basin, and the high temperature situation was more severe this year than the typical high temperature years since the 21st century. The nationwide high temperature process lasted from June 13 to August 30, a total of 79 days, and the strongest high temperature period was from August 11 to 24. According to the comprehensive ranking of high temperature station numbers, duration, intensity and impact range from strong to weak, the order is East China, Central China, southwestern China, northwestern China, North China and South China, among which, the extreme was the most in southwestern China, while there was no high temperature in northeastern China. The spatial and temporal distribution of drought is basically similar to that of high temperature, and the strongest drought period in China was in mid-August. In the summer of 2022, the 500 hPa over the middle and high latitudes of Eurasia showed a “two ridges and one trough” pattern, especially in July and August, the high pressures ridge near the Ural Mountains and the Sea of Okhotsk formed periodic blocking high. The strong subtropical system blocked the active cold air between the two high pressures to the north of 50°N most of the time, resulting in the pattern of “flood in the north and drought in the south” in China. The Iran high at low latitude extended abnormally to the east, and the western Pacific subtropical high was slightly northward and abnormally extended to the west. The air flow in the control area of the high pressure zone formed by the long-term connection of the two high pressures diverged and sank, which continuously blocked the transport of water vapor to the middle latitude, and was not conducive to the precipitation in the Yangtze River basin. At the same time, the south Asia high at high-level was abnormally eastward and moved to the opposite direction of western Pacific subtropical high at mid-level, which superimposed over the range of 80°E-120°E in the middle and late August, resulting in a stable barotropic structure of the high pressure system controlling a wide range of China, and the center was located over Sichuan and Chongqing region, which made Sichuan-Chongqing region become the large value center of high temperature days and the extreme high temperature event times.